History Repeats
by Zenatyra
Summary: As a child, Izaya loved hearing stories of his grandparents' youthful exploits. He loved it when they taught him how to fight, and run, and how to read people. Those were the memories that stuck with him: memories of Grandma Laforet, and Grandpa Stanfield.


**Potentially AU: I do not know whether Chane and Claire become immortal, and I don't know who Izaya's Grandparents are... For all I know this is how it is...**

 **Obviously, I own nothing.**

* * *

Orihara Izaya, who was nearly seven, thank you very much, couldn't help but learn things when he visited his grandparents. The things he learned, and showed off with a child's innocent glee, frightened his parents. The way he jumped and ran alone in the park, practicing. How he twirled pens, cutlery, sticks, anything he happened to have, when no one was looking. The morbid things he'd say, the books he'd read, terrifying in the mouth of a child. They all made his mother worry that history was going to repeat itself.

And so he didn't visit his grandparents much.

Except in times like this. Both his parents had to go overseas on business that Izaya didn't quite understand, but was suitably boring for a perfectly 'normal' family like theirs.

The door, as usual, was answered by his grandmother, holding a pad of paper and a pen. Though her skin now had folds that made her unknowably sad whenever mentioned, and her hair was now grey, the way she held herself delivered an implicit threat aimed at anyone who would underestimate her.

In the face of her grandchildren, however, it was replaced with all the warmth of emotion that she could possibly express.

Following close after her was the confident voice of her husband "Oi, Took you long enough! We've been asking to take care of these kids for, how long?"

Izaya had always wondered why his mother had a long suffering sigh in her voice when talking to or about her parents "far too long, Dad…" She suddenly turned serious "We're trusting you here"

"What could you be worried about? We did alright with you, right?"

"Just… Don't fill their heads with dangerous stories… I don't want them to be like…"

"Like us?"

"It's not that"

"Don't worry. Have a nice trip. I won't go filling the child's head with tales of how adventurous his grandparents were."

"… adventure…" Mom said with a shiver.

Dad, who had been silent till now handed the twins to their grandmother nervously giving almost a squeak as he acknowledged "Chane… Cl-claire…" and tripped his way back to his wife's side.

Izaya pouted "… but I like Grandpa's stories…" he watched his frightened father stumble along, looking up only when he felt a friendly hand in his hair.

Claire was smiling "There's something else she's saying. It's nothing to do with my stories."

"But why wouldn't she just say it?"

"Because it's hard for her to say any other way." He gave half a wink "she never said I couldn't remind you of my stories… Remember how Chane and I met? That big angry blonde man? In the story, did he ever say how he really felt about his girlfriend? He jumped off a train for her, he lost a hand for her. Was he honest with her?"

Izaya tried to remember "N… No… I don't think so"

"Really? Because it's the only thing I ever heard him say?"

* * *

It had been something silly that made Izaya throw out the line "You don't understand me!"

"Calm down, Izaya, we understand, we were young once too" Claire had laughed, and redoubled it when the declaration seemed to confuse the small child on a visceral level. "Yes, and sometimes we forget what that's like. So will you when you get to our age."

"You … I'll… Do I have to?"

"To get old? Well it's easier than one alternative and more fun than the other."

"Alternatives?"

"You could die young, and risk not ever having any fun ever again." Claire said, without any particular malice. "Or you could become immortal. But that takes decades of searching."

"immortal?"

Chane sat next to them, handing the squalling twins to Claire, who held them uncertainly as if they were about to explode. She pulled out a pen and started to write.

[Living like a story with no ending. Other stories go past when you're part of them, but none of them can change you. Distracting. You watch, you get left behind. Sadden people who care]

"… how do…"

[Father]

"Father… Your father?"

[Yes, Want to meet him?]

"Yes… yes of course…"

She closed her eyes, focusing. Claire supplied "This bit's always impressive."

A young man, was suddenly in the room, and not in the room. You got the impression that he was a long way away. Maybe that was the reason for the distant bored eyes that looked around as if this was all completely normal.

"Morning, Huey!" Claire declared before switching to a language that Izaya didn't understand.

The man dubbed Huey shrugged and said something in that same language.

Claire looked at the phantom as if wanting to say "Are you kidding me" then to Izaya who was… terrified but also enraptured.

"You're… You're not… my…" but Izaya's stammering faded at seeing the man's hair… which Izaya could recognize from his own reflection and from pictures of his grandmother's youth. Claire patted him on the back encouraging him "I'm… I'm Orihara Izaya… Nice to meet you!" He bowed deeply to hide his expressions from the man.

Huey… he couldn't be older than twenty, and he looked utterly bored… though that might be the shadow of an emotion lurking around his ears.

Izaya hid behind Chane like a child much more bashful than he. "B-but gran… He can't be your dad…"

[He was an Alchemist.]

"That doesn't…"

[Can't get old. Can't die. Imprisoned for century. Losing track.]

"… that's…" the world in front of Izaya took on detail with every moment. He thought that if needed he could count the blades of grass in an instant. The depth of everything was overwhelming. He could feel his own eyes brighten. There was magic in this world.

[sad]

"…amazing…" Izaya could only imagine. The world would look like a game. Losing would be terrible, but if you could endure… That brought to mind the other option… What was not enduring…

Claire kept talking to the phantom, indecipherable ideas going back and forth despite the annoyance and… was that envy?... being displayed plainly across his face, body… everything radiated it.

Chane balked at something said by the phantom and the vision disappeared. Huey took with him the deep colours, and the clear sounds. Again focus had to be on one thing at a time…

Who could say now that it had ever happened?

"I swear, I don't know how anyone related to you could be so infuriating, Chane?!"

[Are you really in a position to criticize?]

"Well… no… but honestly… You'd think he had better things to do while stewing away in his cell!"

[He never did understand time]

Claire made a few incoherent noises of anger. Took a few breaths. Turned to Izaya. Said "but his way is a bit too flashy. We've got a way too."

"wh- what's that?" Izaya trembled.

"Ripples. Its not much, but we have proof that we existed. Proof that we couldn't have been replaced."

"huh?"

"You." He smiled "remember us and maybe the world won't disappear when I do."

* * *

When the twins would finally settle down for a nap, with a window open to let in the warm breeze, Izaya would follow his guardians out into the yard to watch them sparring. It wasn't precisely a fight. It was more like a dance that both of them knew so well they didn't need the steps for anymore, or like a long, drawn out kiss… or like something else that young Izaya didn't have a word for.

They could read each other perfectly, and so they never actually struck. For all the acrobatics, and Gravity defying, for the visible sharpness of the blades and the bright smiles on their faces, they could never truly hurt each other. That was, somehow, the best part. To see two people so intently focused on each other was… intimate. Nothing that the neighbourhood kids described seeing in movies could even come close.

As soon as Claire thought to take a break, Chane stopped attacking. She backed away a few steps and started in on a form that she had practiced thousands of times before.

Claire knelt beside Izaya, to quietly speak into the child's ear. "If you listen hard enough, you'll hear all the things she's not saying."

Chane walked over and something about what she was… not saying… made Claire raise his hands in surrender "I was just pointing out to the kid how amazing his grandmother is. Is that not my job?" he said rubbing at his head awkwardly. Chane pulled a confused Izaya up by the hand. "She said, You should learn this." Claire said, leaning back to enjoy the show.

Izaya, for all his practice, couldn't help but feel inadequate in the wake of his grandparents' fight. But Chane was silently laughing and Claire was cheering as their blunt knives clashed and he dodged strikes by a hair's breadth. Every move was a surprise, and that tired him more than the movement.

He tried, he listened until his ears were sore but he couldn't hear a thing.

...

For days, every time he saw Chane from then on he tried to read her. To figure out how Claire could see all the movements in her face, and her body and put it together into something understandable. It seemed an impossible task.

Suspecting that his Grandfather had been trying to trick him, Izaya broke the silence that hung over their attempts to catch their breath after sparring, and watching Chane fight her invisible enemies. He opened his mouth to say he gave up… and heard it.

It's a song. She's pouring herself into the knife. The power of it, the need of it, brought the immaterial villains she was fighting into hazy spectral existence. They wouldn't last beyond the end of the fight, and they would never return exactly the same. For a moment their brief lives and graceful deaths meant everything.

* * *

If Claire had been wrong about surviving through his children, then it had been years since both grandparents had died. Izaya. Entering his first year of Highschool and already fed up with loneliness and mundanity, had few hopes for the next few years.

Then he'd seen the boy with the stars in his eyes.

Those were stars that he knew, that he had once been able to see, and that had quickly been hidden by 'normal' life.

For some unknowable reason, the boy with the stars in his eyes hadn't been disgusted or intimidated by him. For some unknowable reason, the boy with the stars in his eyes understood. As they sat in the boy's apartment and played a game of "whose mind is sicker" firing scenarios back and forth demanding reactions, the boy's roommate walked through the door.

"WELCOME HOME, CELTY" the boy yelled in overly obvious glee at the woman's presence. She reacted only with a silent sigh.

"Celty? Nice to meet you." Izaya said, giving Shinra a vaguely patronizing look.

There was silence as she walked to her room still wearing her helmet… odd…

"Not even a response?" Izaya said before recognizing something in the way the mysterious woman held herself. "Oh… I see…" He got up off the floor and ran after the woman catching her wrist to get her attention. He didn't know what he was going to do after that but he couldn't let this woman ignore him. "I'm sorry for assuming… I'll listen close enough from now on… My name is Orihara Izaya."

Though he hadn't used the skill in years, he could pick up the occasional feeling. Confusion, gladness caused by something in his eyes, or maybe something that wasn't in his eyes, Suspicion that wasn't even about him but that flared nonetheless, and echoing over the rest of it the single statement "Knowing you is going to hurt me one day". She pulled a phone from her sleeve and started to type.

He shook his head, smiling sadly. "Oh, no, I know, and I'm sorry about that…" he felt the echoes of his grandfather stir in him, filling him with something that was… the opposite of loneliness. He suddenly realized the awkwardness of the situation and backed away, nearly running "I look forward to seeing you more often Celty-chan!"

It was the last time Izaya would apologize to her, though she couldn't know that.

Shinra stared at him open mouthed "What were you just saying to my future wife?!"

Izaya rolled his eyes "Nothing scandalous… I just… I was rude so I tried to make it right."

"You never apologize to me, and you're always rude to me…"

"She… She reminds me of someone I miss very much…" his voice was brought up harshly as he saw Shinra's smile widen with curiosity "And you won't be able to move for a month if you tell anyone I just said that."

…

Somehow the pervert with the stars in his eyes had a knack for finding weirdos… not that Izaya could complain about that. So after the first few times Shinra blew off plans because "Shizuo's getting out of hospital" Izaya found himself intrigued. He started to bug Shinra for stories about the passionate, delicate, invincible, Heiwajima Shizuo.

Eventually Shinra just pulled him outside sat him down on a table, and pointed at the field. The man in the middle of the field… the beautiful man in the middle of the field, was fighting as if it were the only thing that he knew.

The sheer strength of the man was enough to break the film that hid the beauty of the world. Everything was bright, deep, fast again. This man's rage threw his mind out at the edges, easily caught, read, heard. Izaya could hear the loneliness, and resignation to monstrosity, the desire to be stronger, the purity of it. This boy wasn't the raging blond assassin that Claire had spoken of so fondly. He was something gentler. Then again, Izaya wasn't Claire, for all that he could feel his grandparents giving him advice, as he watched.

Taking huge heaving breaths in the middle of the carnage, the anger looked up through messy blond hair, and saw something of himself in his smiling watcher. He couldn't have known that the smile was one that Izaya saved for times when he was surrounded by love, for times when even the blades of grass were unique and had a story in his eyes. Shizuo couldn't know, because to throw so many thoughts on the wind meant shutting down those parts that watched.

Still, perhaps it was the loneliness that was draining away. Or the persistent doubt about his own humanity. Or the recognition due from one weirdo to another. Or maybe not. Maybe he'd felt like his friend was being stolen away. Or maybe it was just his face. The thoughts were too complex to be read.

Shizuo walked toward him. Ready to fight at a word, or maybe at a wandering gaze. Both of which Izaya was more than willing to give. "Can't we have some fun?"

The table was split in two. Izaya reacted faster than he'd ever had to do outside of training with his grandmother. Knife immediately out and doing its job. He could feel his heart pounding painfully in his chest.

And so he was running, jumping, and twisting in all the ways that had eventually estranged him from his 'Normal' family. Not so much fleeing as running towards something. Running to Chane and Claire's legacy in the vitality of their styles. Running towards an understanding of their lives in the similarities to his own.

"I'LL KILL YOU" came the bellow of this boy who, so easily, could bring Izaya back to life, quickly catching him up. It was… euphoric…

What anyone would have heard, if they'd been listening close enough, in between the peals of breathless laughter was "Yes! Yes! Kill me last!"


End file.
